


Waiting

by Ansku



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Gen, Mental Health Issues, mentions of death and getting buried alive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-30 15:22:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1020279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ansku/pseuds/Ansku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You seem pretty attached to that set of clothes," I remarked idly, just to make conversation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting

**Author's Note:**

> Written after episode 1x03. Spoilers mostly limited to 1x01, if I recall correctly.

"You seem pretty attached to that set of clothes," I remarked idly, just to make conversation. Moonrise was still an hour away, we had a lot of time to kill. We had the books, of course, and he was reading one of them with interest before I spoke, but I didn't share his obvious love for literature and couldn't concentrate on reading when there wasn't anything I especially needed to find from the old legends. I needed a distraction, not more fuel for my nightmares.

"What's wrong with my clothes? They suit me well, do they not?" he shot back, more defensively than I had expected, and gave his outfit a brief inspection like he didn't know exactly what he was wearing.

He wasn't exactly wrong about looking good in his setup, but I couldn't resist needling him a bit. "You've been wearing that coat for over two hundred years, aren't you getting tired of it?"

"It isn't a full year old, yet!" He sounded affronted, but I didn't take it too seriously -- he was a bit of a drama queen sometimes, but I knew already that he enjoyed our bantering. I didn't know what he got out of it, precisely, but he kept coming back for more. And gave as good as he got.

"Perhaps it wasn't, back in your day, but you _were_ buried in it."

He snorted. It was a very British sound, the kind you came across in period dramas when watching TV. The kind of snort that told plain as day that this man was full of disdain, and might soon be calling you an idiot in a very classy accent. It had never stopped amazing me how polite and refined someone could sound while laying on blatant insults straight to your face.

"If magic was able to restore _me_ this well when I was needed, why would it have done anything less for my clothes?" he demanded. "Why would they send me to this time to stop the Horsemen, and risk having me locked away because my essential gear had rotted off to the point of indecency, if not completely out of existence? Which it very well would have done in those conditions, I'll have you know. There are limits to the durability of any cloth, and leaving it lying in a damp, shallow grave for such a long time would utterly destroy it. And that Bible my wife gave me would have been completely illegible had it lain there even for a few _days_. I sincerely doubt there is much of anything left in most graves that we dug for our fallen, and those were on drier ground." He gave me a narrow-eyed look. "These most certainly aren't the clothes I was buried in, these are the clothes I had when I was still alive. Just like this body is."

I didn't know if he had any base for his theories, but he had a fair point. The clothes didn't look old as much as outdated and a bit dirty, and even that was clearly on the surface instead of seeped into the fibers. I wasn't ready to give up on my entertainment yet, though. "You still crawled out of your grave wearing them." I wrinkled my nose, even if there weren't any unpleasant smells that I could detect. I had definitely met and even worked with people who took far less care of their personal hygiene.

His glare got downright withering for a moment. "Perhaps your clothes are of a low enough quality that they'll be ruined from a brief contact with wet mud, I wouldn't know, but mine are not. They also could have done without my tumble into that stream, I suppose, and obviously I haven't had the time _or_ the opportunity to give this coat a proper wash yet, but after I do it will be none worse than it was before I died. These clothes have several years of good use ahead of them, possibly even decades. And in time, if it proves necessary, I shall hopefully be able to find replacements of a sufficient make." He didn't sound too enthusiastic about the idea, somehow, but I didn't know why. With him there were too many possibilities to choose from, and I couldn't discount the possibility that all of them applied. Or none of them. He kept surprising me, every time I thought I had got him figured out.

I frowned as something suddenly occurred to me. "You _were_ given the choice of something else to wear, right? Because we can go buy you something if you need..."

"Not necessary," he said firmly, interrupting my words. "And I would prefer another subject if you feel the need to exchange words while we wait." He was starting to look really uncomfortable with the discussion, and I almost felt bad that I had brought it up. But only almost. Then my brain caught up with his words.

"Wait. Before you _died?_ I thought you were just in a magically induced coma or something!"

"Do you _really_ think that if someone had opened my grave even a year ago they would have found me there like this?" he asked, raising his hands and turning a bit to give me a better view. It brought me up short, because that's exactly what I had thought. The confusion was visible on my face, I suppose, as he sniffed and explained. "If you'll recall I was severely wounded when I lost consciousness for the last time before waking up in that cave. My body must have been too damaged to survive, I realize that now. And what need could have there been for my body to be preserved while the Horseman was locked away? I wasn't put on display, but sealed in a hidden cave -- and buried within an actual grave, not left lying on a hidden bed as one might have assumed, had I been merely unconscious. Also, I'd prefer to think my wife wouldn't have _buried me alive_. No, I believe the body I had did indeed die, and then decompose in due time, as bodies do. Yet here I am, hale and without a mark, let alone bloodstains!"

He looked a bit wild around the eyes, a bit unhinged, but then he almost always did. I couldn't tell if this new theory bothered him more than the earlier assumptions, but it definitely freaked _me_ out.

"But what about your soul?" I asked weakly.

"I suppose that's what the jars and ointments around my grave were for," he mused, scratching at his bearded jaw. "To keep my soul from moving on. And to make sure that when the Horseman was finally awoken it would be enough to resurrect me as well, of course, but I'm reasonably certain that for a two hundred and fifty years it would have been more correct to say that I haunted the place rather than resided there." He gave me a dry, mirthless smile and shrugged like he didn't know what to do with the idea either.

Some days I was afraid that I'd see that same wildness in my own eyes if I looked into a mirror and watched too closely, and this was one of those days. A bit unhinged was a good description for how I felt just then, and it made me wonder how long had _he_ been struggling with his sanity. How long had he been fighting this secret war, anyway, before he fell at the hands of the Death himself? And no matter what, getting thrown out of his own time couldn't have done him any favors, mentally. It was a wonder he could act as cool and collected as he did, really. I'd thought that since I'd started to believe he might be telling the truth, and every new thing I learned only reinforced that assessment. One of these days I was going to have to ask him for pointers. Today I decided my old buddy denial was still good enough to get through the day.

I broke my stare and pretended we had never stopped discussing clothes. "Well, if you change your mind and decide you'd like some new underwear or something after all, just let me know. I'll arrange a shopping trip."

He probably saw through my ploy, but it didn't stop him from scowling at me and refusing to answer.

You might think I was being cruel, tormenting a person who was already on edge, but there was something in his way of talking about himself -- and his occasional rants -- that hinted of release. Actually, speaking out loud about anything at all seemed to be something he needed to do to keep the pressure inside him from building up too much. A coping mechanism of sorts, it felt like. Or maybe it was just his personality. Either way I didn't mind giving him that bit of relief, and it was the kind of help that didn't hurt his pride where it mattered. And helping him helped _me_ cope.

I still didn't know what he thought all of this really was for him -- some sort of purgatory, maybe? End of times he called it, but I wasn't sure what he thought would happen afterwards. If it would really be the end of the world, one way or another, or if this was some sort of hurdle to overcome to keep the world turning. He definitely didn't act like he was here to stay, to continue his life on the 21st century.

The thought made me uncomfortable again, and I changed the subject -- for my own peace of mind rather than his, but I made sure to smirk like I was doing him a favor. We weren't exactly friends, yet, but we both needed a friend and acting like it was true made things easier in a way.

It might have been the least insane thing in my life, at that point.


End file.
